As an alternative to, or in addition to, business travel, many people are using telephonic and video conferencing services to communicate with distant clients, customers, and co-workers. Typically, these services require a user to dial a conference server to initiate a conference session. The conference server then prompts the user to enter a conference code. This conference code may be a host code or a participant code.
When a host code is entered, the conference server starts the conference session and connects the host user with any participants that have connected to the conference server. When a participant code is entered, the conference server checks to see if the host has started the conference session and if so, connects the participating user with the conference session. If the host has not started the conference session, the participating user is placed on hold to await the start of the conference session.
Typically host codes and participant codes are entered by users on a touch tone phone which transmits dual tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signals to the conference server. As participants join or drop from the conference sessions tones are played in the conference session to notify the host and participants that another participant has either joined or dropped from the conference session. However, typically, there is no indication of the identity of participants that have dropped from the conference session.